


the champagne and the stars

by belledame



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - 1920s, Alternate Universe - Historical, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Flappers, Jazz Age, Pride and Prejudice References, Slow Burn, Speakeasies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-25
Updated: 2019-09-25
Packaged: 2020-10-27 23:58:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20769104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belledame/pseuds/belledame
Summary: In New York City, among the glittering lights of the jazz age, Rey, a headstrong flapper crosses paths with Ben, an enigmatic bootlegger. One meeting is enough to tell her they'll never get along, and enough to change her life forever.





	the champagne and the stars

* * *

The Flapper awoke from her lethargy of sub-deb-ism, bobbed her hair, put on her choicest pair of earrings and a great deal of audacity and rouge and went into the battle. She flirted because it was fun to flirt and wore a one-piece bathing suit because she had a good figure, she covered her face with powder and paint because she didn’t need it and she refused to be bored chiefly because she wasn’t boring. She was conscious that the things she did were the things she had always wanted to do. Mothers disapproved of their sons taking the Flapper to dances, to teas, to swim and most of all to heart. She had mostly masculine friends, but youth does not need friends—it needs only crowds.

_Zelda Fitzgerald, Eulogy on the Flapper, Metropolitan Magazine, 1922_

* * *

Elizabeth’s spirits soon rising to playfulness again, she wanted Mr. Darcy to account for his having ever fallen in love with her. “How could you begin?” said she. “I can comprehend your going on charmingly, when you had once made a beginning; but what could set you off in the first place?”

“I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.”

_Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, 1813 _

* * *

_Autumn, 1925_

The ship had been a cramped, foul-smelling place, and Rey would always remember clutching her shabby old coat around her body as a boy shouted on deck, "I can see the statue!"

The Lady Liberty had loomed high in New York Harbor, proudly bearing her torch through the hazy morning fog. Even as her nose turned red with the cold, Rey watched as it drew ever closer, her jaw tight with determination. She'd grudgingly tolerated her fellow _tired, poor huddled masses_ as they'd bumped elbows and shoulders for the past four days, but there, in that moment, they were unified by their sense of relief.

This was the end of their journey, and the beginning of a new one.

* * *

She had been a foundling, with no true home or name, likely an orphan of some sort. The nuns of St. Margaret's parish had not let her forget it. It had been her great fortune, it was explained, that she was given the opportunity to share her bread with two dozen other hungry girls, instead of being forced to beg in the streets of London.

She had found little kindness in that drafty house. The girls, even in their youth, were keenly aware that there was no permanence in their station. If they were particularly lovely or charming, some kind unfortunate family may arrive to take pity on them, and they would be whisked away without so much as a goodbye. For the rest, it was only an inevitability that they would be put to work. The moment a factory or a local business required a pair of small hands, one of their faces would vanish, and be replaced by another soon after.

Sarah Lane had known that she had little chance of being spared the textile mills. Whenever a lovely couple entered the children's home, she always seemed to have a grubby skirt, or a nearby nun scolding her. She didn't think she was a bad girl, but she knew she hadn't been good, either. She had no propensity for turning the other cheek when she was wronged, and had a fiery mouth. 

More times than she could count, she had seen a girl beaten and spoken out in her defense, only to end up with her own knuckles bleeding for her troubles. It had been a futile effort - friends never lasted long enough for any real closeness - but it gave her something of reputation among the nuns as a troublemaker.

It had been a profound reassurance when, at the age of ten, she was sent to work as a kitchen maid. She'd heard some of the factory girls had lost their limbs in machines, and was grateful to be spared such a grueling fate. 

Her relief was short-lived. The work was grueling, she had scarcely been there a month when her hands grew red and chapped from the lye she'd scrubbed into the floors. 

It was thankless work. The lovely stone house was a prison, and her cell had been its kitchen. The rest of the staff were weary old jades, and they had snapped at her even more than the nuns had. 

If she looked out a window, she dawdled. If she sighed, she was a complainer. Even simply being around was enough to earn her an impatient swat.

She remembered a moment early on, sitting huddled a table, mindlessly polishing silver as the cook and one of the other maids had chatted.

They had sent letters with the evening post - one to her married daughter, the other to her doting parents. Their daily routines had scarcely been easier than hers, but she had no one to write to. She truly had nothing. No little trinkets from home, no nagging questions from her mother, no Sunday dress, not even a story, a scrap of information of who she was or who she could have been. 

In that moment, she felt keenly that even among those who had little, she had the least. It beat losing your arm in a milling accident, but she couldn't force herself to be grateful anymore. 

So, she did what she'd done once before. She rebelled. Whenever she had a moment out of sight, she'd explore the grand house, peeking into cozy parlours and elegant drawing rooms. She had never really been idle, but now she was strategically so. She found things to enjoy. On quiet afternoons, studied the faces of the young daughter's dolls, giving them names and whatever elaborate backstories her limited world could dream of. 

When one day, she accidentally encountered the girl on one of her sojourns, she didn't apologize and run away. She'd explained what she was doing, and stated her name - Sarah. 

The girl, small enough to view such things as mutable, had proclaimed her no boring Sarah, but a ray of sunshine. 

She'd promptly written the new name on her new fine paper, with excellent calligraphy and atrocious spelling, and presented it to her with utmost solemnity. 

_Rey of sun-shine._

It was a silly, spontaneous moment. It was likely that the spoiled child forgot it as soon as she'd wandered off. Regardless, for the girl who'd born her plain, foundling name with no attachment, it had been a godsend. The lovely little bit of paper was hers, and the words written upon it were the first thing she'd ever truly owned.

She was dismissed within a year, left to scour out employment without even a reference, but she'd brought one thing with her. When she applied for a new kitchen maid position in a Westminster townhouse, it was with her new name. 

_Rey._

Her next post had lasted longer, but when the master of the house died, he'd left a kind letter of reference, and a few pounds in her name. She'd bought a shabby purse, and chose to squirrel away the money, alongside her folded piece of paper, for the future. She didn't even believe she potentially had one, but it'd warmed her chilled hands to have hope. 

Her answer came from the idle talk of shop girls. They said in America, women were chopping off their hair and voting in elections, even when they weren't married to men who owned property. In New York City, a girl could go from a nobody to a Broadway star overnight. This strange new woman, the _flapper_, danced to the devil's jazz and smoked cigarettes, scandalizing her nation. 

Perhaps best of all, she lived in big city apartments instead of the servants' quarters of a manor.

The idea had been foreign and intoxicating, but once it gripped her, there was no stopping its trajectory. Rey would live on the island of Manhattan, come hell or high water.

She had been sixteen then. It would take her almost three years to save up enough. Even beyond the journey, she'd have to eat, and sleep somewhere, and who knew how long it would take for a willful former kitchen maid to get a job in a foreign country? It had been frightening to her, to think of such uncertainty, but what else had she to lose?


End file.
